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‘Anyway.', Stevie asked Christian. 'What do you do?’

‘Occupation?’ Stevie nodded. ‘ …I lie for a living.’

‘You lie for a living?’

‘Sure, I’m an actor.’

‘Of course. One that knows how to bend the heart. Bad luck for me.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m a writer …A novelist.’

‘Do you ever write poetry?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Then we’re player and poet.’

‘A classic duo.’

‘Somnambulist and dream...’

‘Strawberries and cream.’”, she smiled. ‘I guess you and I have good fate… Ah-’, she got a little sly smile on her face like she was maybe going to make a teasing remark. ‘But what is a player really without his poet. A poet is a poet alone.’

‘But I need you?’, he grinned, ; placing his hands in his pocket and looking down at the pavement as he walked. ‘Metaphorically. Actors need writers, right?’

‘Right.’, she grinned back. She didn’t need anybody. That was what she’d tell you. ‘So. Can you cry on cue?’, she asked him before twisting up one side of her mouth. He nodded gently, worried distantly that she might ask him to try it. That was what girls were like. But, ‘I hate crying on front of people.’, she said, ‘It’s the worst thing to me. Even if my tears were fake, I’d hate it …I don’t know how you do it.’

‘You enjoy being a writer?’

‘Most of the time.’ There came a pause in the conversationconversation, but it wasn’t awkward, they just walked along together, observing the city. Unsure who was leading the way. But then she continued as though no time had passed at all. ‘But how can you be a novelist at 265?’, she said almost wearily. ‘Your emotions change too much. The way you look at the world shifts... Renders your beginnings as too innocent before you even reach the end. If you want to write a novel; you either have to do it in retrospective, or write so fast that you beat your own naivety.’

‘You’re wise.’

‘And I’m halfway through a novel… limbo.’, she said cynically. ‘I either get a disjointed end, or I re-do the beginning. But…’’, she paused. ‘WellWell, I guess it’s not so easy to re-write beginnings.’

‘Don’t get so hung up on beginnings and ends.’, he said.

‘Why not?’ She gazed at him; as though maybe expecting an insightful answer or something.

But he shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Just don’t.’ There was an innocence in the whole thing.

He started to walk away. ‘Hey. Shampoo Tears—’, she called, making him stop.

‘Hey what?’

‘Shampoo Tears. You know- Guys like you’, she shrugged, ‘The ones who can cry with no emotion… like they got shampoo in their eyes or something. Actors.’

She smiled at him teasingly. A group of people passed them by. They were standing in the middle of the street. They never moved.

  They spent another hour, two maybe, together after that. Walking around. But when they came to part, she made it clear she was going to leave just like that. No number. No place to meet. But—

‘…DaichiChristian?’, she said distantly, stopping after she’d already started to walk away. He’d stayed on the spot. ‘We live so in dream like worlds— Do you ever think it’s cruel to be faced with such reality?’ He stared at her deeply. ‘…Actor and writer.’, she shrugged. ‘Well… we must have a thing for illusion. So… maybe I’ll see you around… Afterall, you and I have good fate.’ And then she added sort of darkly before she turned around to leave for good, ‘Do you think?’